I’m on the warpath about relationship health, marriage messes and crises, separation, divorce, and all the ridiculous things people do to mess up their lives and other people’s lives. It has to stop; we must be better to ourselves and others and stop being such a misinformed and, many times, cruel species. I want to wave a wand over people’s heads and say, “Wake the hell up,” but I know that doesn’t work.
Maybe I should go the Neanderthal route and use a bat; there’s nothing wrong with fantasy … and if I did, no one needs one popped over their head more than the martyr-like man or woman who suffers in a marriage they plan to leave for years with minimal or no pro-active movement to fix or leave. Little or no addressing serious issues with their partner, just secret and mostly silent loathing, and … a conscious decision to divorce with a plan attached.
My brother was married for 22 years when his wife said she wanted to separate. He knew she had some issues with the marriage, but he didn’t know they were serious or that a definitive decision had been made and a marital death penalty was being delivered. In her separation conversation, she gave him hope that they could likely work things out with time and space. He worked on himself during that time, which was great, but the day never came when she wanted to work on things, and time dragged on. He realized at some point that she had no interest in reconciliation, found out she’d been having a long-term love affair, and had been miserable in the marriage and planning to divorce him for over seven years. He has never recovered from the rage he feels about that.
Even their almost-grown children were shocked when their mom kicked my brother out of the house. They had thought their parents’ marriage was one to be admired. My niece even wrote a book on marriage that talked about it, describing how affectionate her parents were up to the end and how it came out of the blue. The faux united front damaged my niece, causing her to wonder what was real. If her mother had thought she could slither out of the marriage quietly and without damage and drama by playing happy and misleading the entire family into thinking all was well until it wasn’t, she was wrong.
When a spouse like my brother realizes later what the real deal is, and they will, they will feel righteous anger. My brother was angry because he was kicked out of the family home and left in limbo when he could have been spending time healing and moving on. She got plenty of love and companionship while he spent days and nights alone. Her decision to keep him hanging prolonged his suffering and stole several years of what could have been. He felt he’d been played for a fool. Hell hath no fury like a spouse who has been played the fool, and this is the type of debacle I am trying to prevent.
Healthy people deal with issues as they come up. They don’t sit around and suffer, wring their hands, play games, lie, mislead, or manipulate. They do not scheme to leave their spouse in a few years, waiting for the moment their leaving won’t have such a negative impact, like when the youngest child has finally flown the nest (if they ever do), and wait for the day that there will be no child custody issues and child support won’t have to be paid. There is something about discontentment in marriage that causes people to keep most of their true feelings to themselves, though. (1) It’s a human phenomenon. Most people internalize and take themselves on thought journeys their spouse knows nothing about, subtracting points from their emotional bank account each time their partner gives them a difficult time, complains, fails to do something they said they would, makes a mistake, or creates a moment of exasperation. Some speak out and even ask to go to marriage therapy, but almost no one tells their partner clearly how seriously lethal their discontentment is or if they have a plan to divorce them when they are ready, when they find it suitable, and when they decide. I want to end this by teaching people that marriage dies in stages, and really, all relationships do. If you can identify these, then you will know exactly when you should have spoken up and gone for professional guidance together or on your own if your partner won’t go.
A marriage deteriorates in stages:
1. Disillusionment. Uh-oh, I think I’m unhappy. A person realizes they’re unhappy and tells themselves that relationships have ups and downs, and they’ll wait and see if this is serious.
2. Erosion. They realize it is serious and could lead to divorce but quickly dismiss the idea of divorce due to numerous concerns like children, finances, judgment, fear of failure, religious views, and more.
3. Detachment. The stock of the marriage drops further, and the unhappy spouse tells themselves they can hang on so long as they find things to sustain them away from the marriage, like hobbies, new friendships, affairs, physical activities, and going back to school. But the stock will continue to fall, and their ability to tolerate it will lessen.
4. The Straw. One day, we can’t predict when or how the unsuspecting spouse will say or do something or not say or do something. It could be something big or small, and at that moment, the disillusioned spouse gets absolute clarity: “I cannot be in a marriage where my spouse does X (the thing they just did).” The partner emotionally disconnects at that moment, and the ground is set for a marriage crisis.
When should a married couple go to a marriage counselor?
When a person hits stage two, erosion, a couple should get professional help. Almost no one does this, but they might if they had more knowledge and awareness of the marital deterioration process. Most divorces and marriage crises could have been averted in the long run if the couple had come in to deal with their issues early before the resentment and lack of trust had piled up. It is the marriage equivalent of catching cancer early.
I am fighting to end the passive-aggressive ways people deal with unhappiness in relationships. If your spouse’s stock is dropping, why wouldn’t you tell them? If you feel yourself disconnecting, what would prevent you from talking about it? If you’ve realized your marriage problems are serious and could lead to divorce, why would you stay silent? What is the aversion to being honest with your partner about what’s going on with you and your discontentment in the marriage? Why would you think it’s okay to decide to divorce and then keep that decision hidden in your vest for years?
The answer may be that you don’t want to start something. Heaven forbid that the family dust gets kicked up. Perhaps you fear your partner’s reaction; do you dread the amount of hostility you may encounter, for example? Some people tell me they tried, but their complaints fell on deaf ears. If I had a partner who was not responsive to my complaints, the deaf ears scenario, I would tighten the belt a little. People will wake up when they get uncomfortable enough; we must find out what that is for each person. What might be worth trying is moving out for a couple of weeks, going on strike in the form of things like refusing to attend important events, cooking dinner, or whatever it is your spouse values.
Most of us are wired to want to do right by people, to be good people. The only way to have integrity in this situation is to make the right decision and face your problem head-on like an adult. There is only one caveat to this: If your spouse is unstable or abusive, and you and your children’s well-being might be seriously endangered if you express your feelings and the intent to leave, then you should keep your plans secret and talk to a family violence center or call the family violence hotline at 800.799.SAFE (7233) about how to leave your partner safely. You will need support and they will help you.
Aside from instability and abuse, there is no excuse for doing the right thing. The more transparent and authentic people are, the healthier they are — please remember that.
What creates a marital martyr?
“My plan for a long time was to leave when our youngest child graduated from high school and left for college,” said Roy.”
“Why then?” I asked.
“I felt it was best for the kids to leave when I did. I’d been waiting a long time to catch my fresh start. To get away. I’d been miserable for years, and I would have guessed she was miserable, too. I thought I had picked the right moment to make my move and hoped for an amicable divorce, but it didn’t turn out that way. Sue was shocked and angry; she went ballistic, I mean, through the roof. She said that after all the years of marriage, she had no idea I was so unhappy. Everything went to hell. I thought the kids would be okay if I waited until they went to college, and that actually seems stupid now. I can’t believe the negative impact it had on them. Man, they turned on me, said they felt ambushed, too, and I basically blew up my entire life.”
Yes, a Decider, the person who plans to leave their spouse when the best time comes, doesn’t realize there is no best time to leave your spouse or your children. Like a martyr, they sacrifice themselves and their happiness on the altar of an intact family, at least while the children still live at home or whatever best time comes to mind. Attempts to repair their marriage along the way were lame at best, and they quickly gave up and slinked down into a marital foxhole, where they planned and plotted their escape.
Although these marital martyrs may tell a few choice confidantes or best friends that they plan to divorce their spouse “when the children graduate from high school” or whatever timeframe they choose that would allow them to be seen in the best possible light, the fact that they don’t clue their spouse in on where they are in the marriage is the most egregious act of all. If I were married to someone who did that and found out they were going through the motions of life and leading me to believe all was well, if not wonderful, while secretly watching the clock tick away and waiting for the alarm to go off, I wouldn’t be too happy about it, and that’s me being nice. My stance is: If you don’t want to be with me, don’t wait around thinking you’re doing me any favors; get yourself out the door so I can be around those who want me in their lives.
There is no nice and wonderful way to leave your family.
Your spouse will freak out no matter what day you tell them you are unhappy and want out. They will freak out even if they are unhappy, too. Your children will suffer, no matter how old they are or where they live. There is no right time or best time. If you have a person in mind to be with after you leave your original family, it is not likely your children will cope well that well, either. Children aged 12 and older feel disloyal to the biological parent who was betrayed and will find it hard to accept someone who played a part in that. Even if you find a partner who has nothing to do with your marriage ending, it will be difficult for your children to accept and adjust to it.
What your divorce fantasies are today will not match reality, I assure you. If you have never worked on your marriage, then you will not be able to say that you did everything you could to keep your family together. Being able to say that phrase brings those who divorce peace of mind in the end, “I did … all… I … could.” I always say a Decider must earn their divorce and new life if children are involved. If you want a family poop show and regrets, then don’t tell your spouse how seriously you’re struggling, don’t work on it, give up, walk away, and/or have an affair. If you want to earn your freedom with no stone left unturned and/or repair your marriage, then take the right path, get therapy for yourself and marriage therapy with your partner, and dedicate yourself to turning your dire situation around. Put the work in that it takes. If, after all the work, your marriage is still a source of misery, then we can talk about an amicable divorce.
I frequently hear that sometimes people don’t like or jibe with their marriage therapist and then stop going. If that happens, find someone else and keep changing therapists until you find a fit. The most important factor is, do you like and trust this person? Do you have a rapport with them? I must tell you, to this day, clients fire me, drop out, or switch to someone else; our profession is like hairdressers; we deal with many types of clientele, hair, and styling requests, and we can’t possibly please every customer. I’m used to it and never take it personally. We all want to be loved, of course, but I understand my style is not for everyone, and since the therapy is for you, my attitude is I want you to be happy.
Understanding hard and soft categories of marital disillusionment.
I have written in the past about marital crimes and how they have different levels, from misdemeanors to felonies and capital crimes. Therapists at Brigham Young University and the University of Minnesota who research marriages on the brink characterize reasons clients give for leaving as falling into soft or hard categories. The three “hard” issues or marital felonies, as I call them, are adultery, abuse, and addiction; in this case, they are most lethal when the spouse doing those things is not making or willing to put in a good faith effort to discontinue them or go into recovery. The soft category issues include growing apart, losing connection, losing romantic love, financial disagreements, being different people, and not paying enough attention. (4) The hard issues alone have enough destructive qualities to end a marriage. The soft issues can end marriages over time when not dealt with and improved.
In addition to this, the way we are wired and our tolerance level for living with another human being for life and all that brings are different. Soft thinkers are hopeful and optimistic types and far more tolerant of marriage’s challenges, while hard thinkers are less hopeful and are likely to consider divorce frequently. My last husband had to be the hardest thinker I have ever met. About five minutes after we married, It began to unfold that he was intolerant of me and at least one of my two children most of the time and quickly began to tell me that we would be divorced; it was just a matter of when. The whole thing seemed ludicrous at the time, but the energy of marriage can profoundly affect hard thinkers, and not in a good way. I think of hard thinkers as fair-weather partners who are generally difficult people and who may be impossible to please over the long haul.
Understand that I do think sometimes divorce is the right decision. I see couples sometimes and say to myself, “You need a mercy killing; end this madness, please.” I am saying, deal with your stuff and try to repair things if possible. If your partner is a reasonable, sane person, don’t keep a divorce decision secret from them for years before you plan to do it and spring it on them one fine day. If you want to leave, deal with it sooner rather than later; make sure you speak with a marriage therapist who can talk to you about whether your part in the situation and whether your thinking is solid and prepare the ground with respect and compassion so you may have a chance at an amicable divorce.
Married people think about divorce a lot.
A married person can sit in misery for a very long time before officially entering into the divorce process, according to statistics. In a report by the Institute of Family Studies (1) reported by Allen Hawkins and Sage Allen, where 3000 individuals married at least one year were surveyed, ranging between age 25 and 50, and more than half said they had thought of divorce at one time or another. The survey was part of the National Divorce Decision-Making Project, which asked a series of questions about what people think and do when considering divorce. In addition to the survey, the researchers interviewed a small sub-sample of respondents to get a more “fine-grained perspective.” (3)
One of the main takeaways of this study is that thinking about divorce does not necessarily lead to divorce, and thinking about it occasionally is normal. It also said that speaking with trusted people about the feelings and thoughts one is having about their marriage seems to help keep people in their marriages, though every marriage therapist knows that talking about your spouse to people your spouse also has a relationship with is often not helpful, and can poison the well. For example, if Sarah tells her mom about her frustrations with her husband, Steve, it will harm Steve’s relationship with his mother-in-law. If you do talk about your frustrations with someone, make sure they aren’t in your mutual circle of family or acquaintances.
What I want is for individuals who find themselves thinking of divorce and firmly in the marital deterioration process to speak up and get some form of assistance in stage two, erosion. Definitely get therapy yourself, and discuss with your therapist the best ways to tell your partner that you are struggling with the marriage. We know that getting individual therapy about marital distress is helpful in staving off divorce. Treat your spouse as you would want to be treated, and kindly and compassionately approach them and let them know how serious your feelings are. Give them an opportunity to make it right. In addition, do an honest and humble assessment of your part in why the marriage is on its knees, I promise you there are things there. Figuring out your part in it may be the best thing you can do for your family members.
Divorce regret.
There’s enough regret about divorce to mention it. The best data comes from when people look backward, 10 years later, after many situations have played out. Judith Wallerstein, who passed away in 2012 but was then executive director for the Center for the Family in Transition in Corte Madera, Calif., studied the effects of divorce for decades and followed 60 middle and upper-income families for ten years following divorce. Men, women, and children were interviewed in the study. (6) Among the ones who initiated the divorce, two-thirds claimed to be happier ten years later. Here are some of the other takeaways:
- Overall quality of life improved in 10 percent of the divorced couples.
- Divorce is more psychologically significant for women. Fifty-five percent of women had “notably improved the quality of their lives,” compared to 32 percent of men.
- Women’s ability to thrive depended on their age and profession at the time of divorce. Women under 40 fared better, based on psychological and financial measures. Seventy percent of the under-40 women improved their financial status, while 40 percent of the over-40 year-olds experienced a decline in income.
- Ten years later few people took responsibility for the marriage’s breakup. More than half the women took no responsibility at all.
Despite worsening conditions, very few wished to reconcile with their ex; of the 60 couples studied, two remarried one another, and one divorced again later. At the 10-year mark, 90 percent of women and 70 percent of men felt it had been the right decision.
The one factor that influenced this was the intense anger that remained 10 years later. Although the divorces studied were relatively amicable, there were no battles over custody or visitation; the research showed that couples were as angry many years later as at the time of the divorce. Ten years later, 40 percent of women and 28 percent of men remained intensely angry with their former partner. The tragic part of this statistic, Wallerstein said, was that women’s anger toward their ex spilled onto the child’s relationship with the father.
Children.
Wallerstein found that divorce was the central influencing factor, casting a shadow in children’s lives ten years later. The vivid memories and intense grief over long-ago infidelity by one parent or divorce occurring at such a young age, the child never got to know an intact family, and the pain of loss of close contact with a father who distanced himself in the post-divorce years. Although boys seemed to suffer more initially, girls seemed to exhibit negative symptoms of anxiety more in their adolescent years.
Children grieve the loss of their “first family.” (7). Children are expected to move along as their parents have, and for many, it feels as if they are supposed to lop off that period in their lives as if it didn’t exist.
Remarriage and stepfamilies have mostly negative effects on children, which makes complete sense. What a huge adjustment it would be for a child to be put in a situation of having to live in an entirely new family environment with completely different routines, rituals, and ways of doing things. There are so many factors that can lead to intense discomfort for children that it’s a wonder that any of these families succeed.
Adult Children of Divorce.
Gray divorce is a huge topic these days, and for those who raised their children and then parted, to think that the children will fare well after their parents’ divorce is misguided. In her book Primal Divorce: Adult Children of Divorce, author Leila Miller says when she researched her book, she was shocked at the avalanche of pain she encountered. Miller says adult children of divorce typically feel like they have lost a home to go to and learn to “navigate two separate worlds” and to be two different people, depending on which parent they are with. (8) In the end, Miller concluded that divorce is never over for the children who experience it.
Whether you have young children, adolescents, or grown children, divorce will have lasting effects, no matter when it occurs. Yes, some marriages need to end, some people can’t be healthy in a relationship with another, it’s true. But let’s be real about the damage it does, what a big deal it always is, and how long it takes to recover from it if one ever does.
(6) https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-06-14-vw-2440-story.html
(7) https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-adult-children-of-divorce-find-their-voice
(8) https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-adult-children-of-divorce-find-their-voice
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Becky Whetstone, Ph.D., is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in Arkansas and Texas* and is known as America’s Marriage Crisis Manager®. She is a former features writer and columnist for the San Antonio Express-News and has worked with thousands of couples to save their marriages. She can work with you, too, as a life coach if you’re not in Texas or Arkansas. She is also co-host of the YouTube Call Your Mother Relationship Show and has a telehealth private practice as a therapist and life coach via Zoom. To contact her, check out www.DoctorBecky.com and www.MarriageCrisisManager.com. Also, here is how to find her work on the Huffington Post. Don’t forget to follow her on Medium so you don’t miss a thing!
For licensure verification, find Becky Whetstone Cheairs.
Becky Whetstone is an Arkansas native and has a Ph.D. in Marriage and Family Therapy from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas. She is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) in Texas and Arkansas. 
